anathema

The definition of an anathema is a person or thing who is detested or hated.

Adolf Hitler is an example of an anathema.

anathema

noun

pl.-·mas

a thing or person accursed or damned

a thing or person greatly detested

a solemn ecclesiastical condemnation of a teaching judged to be gravely opposed to accepted church doctrine, or of the originators or supporters of such a teaching

the excommunication often accompanying or following this condemnation

Origin of anathema

Ecclesiastical Late Latin from Gr, thing devoted to evil; previously, anything devoted from anatithenai, to dedicate from ana-, up + tithenai, to place: see do

greatly detested

viewed as accursed or damned

subjected to an ecclesiastical anathema

anathema

noun

pl.a·nath·e·mas

A formal ecclesiastical ban, curse, or excommunication.

A vehement denunciation; a curse: “the sound of a witch's anathemas in some unknown tongue” ( Nathaniel Hawthorne )

One that is cursed or damned.

One that is greatly reviled, loathed, or shunned: “Essentialism—a belief in natural, immutable sex differences—is anathema to postmodernists, for whom sexuality itself, along with gender, is a 'social construct'” ( Wendy Kaminer )